Predictions of moment and deflection capacities of RC shear walls by different analytical models

Evaluation of the displacement and moment capacities of shear walls is an important part of their design. The aim of the study presented in this paper was to show how models and softwares, as commonly used by designers and researchers, can yield a variety of predictions for the same problem input of rectangular slender shear walls. Six commonly used models (analytical and numerical), as well as a non-linear calculation procedure that was derived in this study were used to simulate twelve reported experiments. Subsequently, the paper also presents a comparison between the analytical predictions and the results of a selected group of twelve reported experiments. This comparison shows that the numerical and analytical models, which were examined, predict the moment capacity much better than they do for the displacement capacity. It should be clearly noted that the purpose of the current study was to illuminate the variation that can be obtained by practitioner structural engineers, as well as researchers, when attempting to reach quantitative conclusions regarding the displacement and moment bearing capacities of a given RC shear wall (rather than evaluating “which is best”).